Simply Devine

The Brown & Brown Northern Ireland Forest Rally Challenge will go down to the final following Niall Devine’s start-to-finish win at the Premier Car Parts Dogleap Rally, writes William Neill.

The Strabane-based Volkswagen Polo R5 driver, with Liam McIntyre on the notes, was fastest on the opening 3.9-mile Loughermore test by 2.4 seconds before increasing the gap to 3.7 seconds on a particularly slippery second test. Heading into the Ballykelly service, following the first pass of Cam, 5.7 seconds separated fellow IN Sport Polo crew Darragh Cairns and Mark Preston.

Cairns, following a third place finish at last month’s Bushwhacker, remained the challenger right to the final stage where he slipped back to fourth with Gareth Mimnagh and J Barry McCarney the runner up - 12.2 seconds from matching Devine’s pace but claimed a stage win on the day.

On his Rally2 debut with Martin Brady, Alan Smyth quickly adapted to the change from an Escort to set second fastest time on the opening stage and finish on the podium in third with an IN Sport Fiesta. The gap to Mimnagh was 20.2 seconds but the place secured ahead of Cairns by 44.5 seconds.

New Brown & Brown leaders Stephen Dickson and Ben Teggart finished fifth, moving ahead of Jordan and Paul Hone to be in the best position for the Fivemiletown final in what is proving to be a family battle this season with Stephen nine points ahead of dad, Ashley Dickson.

It had looked like the Hone duo were going to be crowned champions up until the mid-event service. The Claudy men had a misfire and after inspecting it headed off for the second loop only to return with no further stage miles completed thanks to the car overheating and concerns forcing a retirement. The Premier Car Parts team have moved from leaders to third in the standings but a dropped score will keep the race for the title alive to the end.

Sam Stewart, co-driven by Alan Johnston, now leads two-wheel-drive in the Brown & Brown points with the Donegal man’s second maximum score of the season, winning the category at the Dogleap from Oran Donnelly’s BMW M1 by 39.1 seconds.

Historics were fronted by Mullingar’s Nigel Creagh and Anthony McDonald but it was Jimmy Mills, who also won the category in the Brown & Brown supported Northern Ireland Rally Championship earlier this year, taking maximum points. Jonathan Greer was preparing for the RAC Rally in a Ford Sierra Cosworth but had early engine issues.

In other news, Kenny McKinstry slid off the road on SS2, Kyle White had turbo boost issues and a broken track control arm forced Paul Britton out.

The Brown & Brown Northern Ireland Forest Rally Challenge final will take place on November 22 at the Samsonas Fivemiletown Rally. More details and entries will be available for the Omagh Motor Club event via www.rallyscore.net.

Results (full results via www.rallyscore.net)

1 Niall Devine/Liam McIntyre (Volkswagen Polo R5);

2 Gareth Mimnagh/J Barry McCarney (Ford Fiesta Rally2);

3 Alan Smyth/Martin Brady (Ford Fiesta Rally2);

4 Darragh Cairns/Mark Preston (Volkswagen Polo R5);

5 Stephen Dickson/Ben Dickson (Ford Fiesta);

6 Ian Dickson/Mark McGeehan (Ford Fiesta);

7 Gareth Sayers/Gareth Gilchrist (Ford Fiesta Rally2);

8 Ashley Dickson/Alistair Wyllie (Ford Fiesta);

9 Conor McCrossan/David Burns (Skoda Fabia Rally2);

10 Aaron McLaughlin/Darren Curran (Ford Fiesta R5).